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October 20 – Meeting Me Where I Am · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome back to The Daily Ripples podcast.
• 0:08
  I'm Pastor Mike, and we have Corey here with us again today.
• 0:11
  It's Tuesday, October the 20th.
• 0:13
  We pray before we start that everybody has a wonderful day today and that you can help somebody who needs help and that you receive the help that you need.
• 0:23
  But our devotional today is titled Meeting Me where I am.
• 0:26
  The stone.
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  God is patient with my questions and faithful even when my understanding is incomplete.
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  Ripple one practical.
• 0:34
  Today, I will not let unanswered questions keep me from taking the next faithful step.
• 0:39
  Understanding often grows through experience rather than explanation.
• 0:43
  I can trust God even while I continue to learn.
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  Ripple 2 is spiritual.
• 0:48
  As I follow Christ, instead of waiting for every doubt to disappear, the Holy Spirit gently replaces confusion with confidence.
• 0:55
  Let me pause there, because sometimes the Holy Spirit, as we've talked about before, is not so gentle in his corrections.
• 1:01
  Sometimes it hits us like a ton of bricks.
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  But anyway, we digress.
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  The Father meets me with compassion, not condemnation.
• 1:08
  patiently revealing his character as I learn to trust him more each day.
• 1:13
  And as always, we will save our prayer for the end of the episode.
• 1:18
  So, Corey, when I was thinking about this, you've read the passage, because I know you told me recently that you've been studying the Gospel of John a lot, right?
• 1:27
  And so I'm sure you're familiar with it about the whole Doubting Thomas thing.
• 1:33
  You know, so that's what I thought of when I was reading the stone today, you know, that God is patient with my questions and faithful, even though my understanding is complete.
• 1:41
  Well, I mean, we see the truth of that even from scripture because a lot of times, you know, like growing up, I can remember being told the story about doubting Thomas and and almost being told as a rebuke of Thomas, you know, for asking those questions, right?
• 1:56
  But whenever you read the passage, you know, I see that that's not actually what happened.
• 2:01
  You know, he wasn't actually being rebuked.
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  And it says, you know, this is a new internet, new international version.
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  This is John 20 starting in verse 24, says now Thomas, also known as Didymus, which just means the twin.
• 2:13
  We don't know whose twin he was, but anyway, one of the 12 was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
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  So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.
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  But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands, I put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand to his side.
• 2:29
  I will not believe.
• 2:30
  So he was saying what he needed to believe that Christ was back.
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  And then it says a week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them, though the doors were locked.
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  Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.
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  Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here, see my hands.
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  Reach out your hand and put it into my side.
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  Stop doubting and believe.
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  Thomas said to him, my lord and my god.
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  Then Jesus told him, because you have seeing me, you have believed.
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  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
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  And so what we read here is not Jesus rebuking him because Jesus didn't have to show up in the middle of the locked room and say, here's what you said you needed.
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  So touch my hand, you know, touch my side.
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  He showed up and gave Thomas what he needed for his belief to form.
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  And it's the same thing that God does with us.
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  Whenever I have periods of doubt.
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  God will put something in my life to reveal, you know, his presence and his purpose for me to allay my doubts and questions. For me, having doubts and questions and faith is always where growth begins, growth and understanding.
• 3:36
  Because if you have questions about something, you're going to go, if it nags at you enough, you're going to go look it up and you're going to pray about it and you're going to study about it and you're going to arrive at an answer.
• 3:44
  And so for me, that is just such one of the best things that God gives us, is that he continues to teach us through scripture, and he continues to teach us through the Holy Spirit.
• 3:54
  And for me, I continue to learn through the program of, you know, alcoholics anonymous for myself.
• 3:59
  And it all kind of works together and they're all teaching tools that God uses to make sure that I'm, you know, not to condemn me for not knowing or being further along that I am.
• 4:11
  But like it says, meeting me right where I am.
• 4:13
  My pastor, you know, coming up when I got back into faith.
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  He always said that God meets us where we are and leads us to where we need to grow.
• 4:21
  And I've always lashed onto that phrase because it's been true in my life.
• 4:24
  I was, uh, You know, I was going along the same, you know, thought of that and because it says, you know, when my understanding is incomplete.
• 4:35
  And, um, yeah, but I think about like, you know, in Bill's story, it says how dark it was before the dawn.
• 4:42
  Yeah. And that means there's light, right?
• 4:45
  So if you like, you know, the lights coming, and, you know, so when I see that, and, you know, I like how on page 46, it says, um, and who could comprehend a supreme being anyhow?
• 4:57
  But, you know, man, like, that's what I'm only trying to do, right?
• 5:01
  That's all, that's this whole thing is I'm trying to comprehend the supreme being in my life and how it's working and what it's going to do, how it's going to do it because I want to know exactly what.
• 5:11
  Yeah, but I can't, like, you know, says, how could I, you know?
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  But that means I'm in alignment with God is everything.
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  Because what if I'm not in line with that yet?
• 5:21
  What if I'm in line with God's just some things?
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  But I believe, I heard my significant others say, you know, about talking about the mustard seed one day. And, you know, I think that's how if I believe in, because I'm not going to come into this position.
• 5:36
  I think my earliest position I had was either God was everything or God's not thinking, I said, he's everything, and then I came into alignment with, he is the fan and the poop, right?
• 5:48
  You know, and you know what I'm saying?
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  But like, you know, he was a good and the bad.
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  And but that's all I could see in my life was good and bad.
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  I couldn't see anything else besides that.
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  I saw the good stuff that happened.
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  I saw the bad stuff that happened, but I couldn't see everything in between. And I think what happens for me, at least, is like in 1st Corinthians, it says, and now we can see a poor reflection in the mirror, then we shall see face to face.
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  Now I know the part that I shall know fully, even though as a no fully know.
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  And I think about like a dirty mirror, right?
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  So if I'm looking at a dirty mirror, my life has become more clear, more clear, more clear, and another friend of mine likes to talk about.
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  God always is evolving.
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  And God's not evolving into less for me.
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  God's evolving in a more for me and more and more and more.
• 6:36
  But I'm, but I'm, but you know, do you think about that? And we talk a lot about this, just me and you, not on this thing, and, you know, how I think for me, there's part of my life that, uh, and something else was more for me.
• 6:55
  Yeah. And it, like alcohol and like my selfish behavior literally just engulfed my life.
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  Um, and so I know what abandoning it looks like.
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  And I don't think everybody has to operate at that level to be, have a sense of peace, have a sense of, you know.
• 7:14
  They like serenity, but you know, I know what abandoning myself looks like in the case of alcohol and things like that in my life.
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  And I think I have to give God for me that same respect.
• 7:27
  Um, because if I don't, I know what fulfills it.
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  And what fulfills it is other things.
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  So I have to, you know, so my fulfillment might look different to someone else's fulfilling what I believe God needs me to do.
• 7:42
  Um, but I, you know, I don't like to separate myself from that, but like I found that the bare minimum doesn't, doesn't help me.
• 7:52
  Because it says, I mean, you quoted it the other.
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  I mean, you put, like, you were, you were firing that thing out, you know, because half measures of have availed me nothing.
• 8:00
  Yeah.
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  And I didn't take any half measures out there when I was drinking.
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  You're all in. Right, you know, so if I'm not all in for me personally in this, I don't believe, but you know, it also says, well, 47 on the page over right here.
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  It says, do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms to deter you from honestly asking yourselves what they mean to you, right?
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  So what they mean to you might mean something different than me.
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  And I don't think any prejudice against what so that means that somebody else needs to, you know, I need to get into that because it's a God of own understanding.
• 8:35
  And I believe if I stay in love with these words of this literature, the big book as well.
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  You know, it's a program of your own understanding, but the words are black and white.
• 8:44
  They're very simple.
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  And there's a Webster's dictionary out there as well.
• 8:50
  Yeah, there's even online dictionaries for that, you know, can't can't bother to find the physical book, you know?
• 8:56
  Did you know that?
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  Did you know that you can highlight a word?
• 8:59
  Yeah.
• 9:00
  And tab over and say, look up, it'll give you a definition right then.
• 9:04
  Oh, you mean like with a phone?
• 9:06
  Yeah.
• 9:07
  Oh yeah, like I, well, and not only that, but I do a lot of reading with like, because I've been a fan of like Kindle, you know, with Amazon for, well, since it 1st came out, I like had the 1st edition of the little Kindle reader thing, you know, back when it was like three, $400 and wasteful, but I was drinking, so it didn't matter.
• 9:22
  But anyway, I had that, you know, at the time.
• 9:25
  And the thing I love about that is that, yeah, you can highlight on a word and it'll pop up right there what the definition of it is.
• 9:31
  I found out yesterday, like a thesaurus kind of thing.
• 9:34
  Well, you know, you live and you learn.
• 9:35
  you know, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, right?
• 9:38
  That's how it works.
• 9:40
  But I was thinking, because you've used that example, that analogy a couple of times, you know, that God is the fan and the poop, you know, yeah.
• 9:49
  And I think what you are alluding to is Romans 828.
• 9:53
  And that's where it says that we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose.
• 10:00
  Even the poop that hits the fan, you know, can be worked for good.
• 10:04
  It's what we learn from it and what we use and take from it that matters.
• 10:08
  You know, it says in our practical ripple today that, um, I won't let unanswered questions keep me from taking the next faithful step.
• 10:16
  And again, over to the big book.
• 10:18
  Again, same page that you were referencing before, page 47, you know, it says that at the start, this was all we needed to commit spiritual growth to affect our 1st conscious relation with God as we understood him.
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  Afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things, which then seemed entirely out of reach.
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  That was growth, but if we wish to grow, we had to begin somewhere.
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  And so that's where that whole thing about, you know, God meets us where we are and leads us to where we need to grow, comes back, you know, and it's the big book affirms that, you know, it's not.
• 10:47
  I don't just, as soon as I walk into a recovery meeting and pick up a white ship, I don't immediately understand, you know, exactly how the program is going to work, you know, how it's going to keep me sober tomorrow, much less today.
• 10:58
  But I, you know, what I learned through experience, you know, when I came into the rooms was that the more that I showed up and I took the suggestions people were giving me and I actually incorporated them into my life and started reading the book and seeing how that all aligns.
• 11:12
  Yeah, my life started working a lot better than it had in the past.
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  And problems that I had, were not as major, you know, relationship issues that I had, either resolved or went away.
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  And it was because I was actively listening to what, you know, God was saying to me.
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  And again, as we talked about, I think yesterday.
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  Many times, especially early on, that was things that God was saying to me through other people, through the other men in the rooms that have been through the same things that I had been through.
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  And that helped me grow in compassion and grace for other people as well.
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  What else you got for? Someday, oh, really?
• 11:47
  All right.
• 11:47
  Well, this sounds like a great place for the rest of the land on our prayer for today.
• 11:51
  Father God.
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  Thank you for meeting me with patience when I struggle to understand.
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  Through your Holy Spirit, strengthen my faith as I continue to follow you, shape me through the example of Jesus.
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  Amen.
• 12:03
  Amen.